Behind the scenes at Koenigsegg's speed factory

This article was taken from the June 2014 issue
of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print
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Koenigsegg believes it has created the fastest production
car in the world -- again. If the prototype One:1 reaches its
computer-simulated top speed of 439kph in track tests this summer,
the company will regain -- by an impressive 24kph -- the title it
lost in 2005 to the Bugatti Veyron.

The headquarters of supercar manufacturer Koenigsegg Automotive
AB is in a former air force base on an industrial park in
Ängelholm, southern Sweden. A decommissioned F-10 fighter jet
perches on a plinth at the entrance and there's a flight museum
next door. The proximity to these aeronautical symbols serves
Koenigsegg well: the company permanently rents one of the two
1,400-metre former runways so that it can perform the intense
acceleration and braking tests on the vehicles it
manufactures.

"We can do zero to 320kph and then back to zero and still have
room left over," says production manager Manuel Berglund. "The
locals were used to the ground shaking from the jets, and then it
went quiet for a while. Then we came here."

A Koenigsegg in the company's "Dyno room" where the electronics, gearbox and engine are tested before the body panels are attached. It takes eight months for each model to make it through the seven assembly stations to completion

Tom Nagy

Koenigsegg has around 25 per cent of the market for hypercars --
limited-edition, handbuilt vehicles that cost in excess of
£600,000. Yet it is engaged in a battle for supremacy with main
rivals Pagani Automobili and Bugatti Automobiles.

The firm was founded in 1994 by the then 22-year-old Christian
von Koenigsegg, who at the age of five became fixated with a
Norwegian animated film, Flåklypa Grand Prix, in which a bicycle
repairman makes a racing car. This movie ignited a dream that one
day he would create his own. The first prototype, a carbon-fibre
model named CC was unveiled in 1996; but it wasn't until 2002 that
the first Koenigsegg customer took delivery of a red CC8S at the
Geneva Motor Show. Since then the company has produced 12 to 20
cars annually and has brought a new model to market every year or
two -- many of them breaking records for their speed.

The most significant of these was achieved in February 2005 in
Nardò in Italy, when the Koenigsegg CCR broke the
Guinness record for the fastest production car in the world,
reaching 388.87kph and beating the speed held by the McLaren F1.
The accolade stood until September that year, when the Bugatti
Veyron hit 408.47kph. Now, having had this taste of automotive
superstardom, von Koenigsegg wants it again -- with his latest
design, the One:1.

The paint station is the third of seven stages through which the care passes. Koenigsegg lays down a 150-micron clear coat (three times the depth of the clear coat sprayed on an average car) on top of the pain to resist chips and scratches. Achieving a perfectly smooth surface takes seven coats

Tom Nagy

The One:1 is a mid-engined version of Koenigsegg's 2011 Agera R.
Only seven will be built and all have already been pre-sold for
£1.7 million each. The name came from Koenigsegg's aim to match the
car's power-to-weight ratio. "We played safe," says Jon Gunner, the
company's technical director. "We had more power than we needed and
backed off to match the weight [1,360kg]. It turned out to be the
first megawatt car -- 1,360hp is one megawatt." It's 1,014kW
at 7,500rpm, to be precise -- which propels the car from zero to
400kph in 20 seconds.

"As you get up into high speeds the car's requirements become
different. It effectively becomes two cars," Gunner says. "With the
Agera we pushed as far as we could to combine track needs with
speed, but it had its limitations. We had a rethink with the One:1.
We wanted the best of both."

To create this hybrid, Gunner found the solution in dynamic
surfaces: panels that change shape as the car requires. The One:1
can also download telemetry from the cloud as it travels to set up
the vehicle on the fly.

Engine assembly and initial testing take place off the production line. On the wall is the badge designed in 1994 by Jacob Laftman and based on the Koenigsegg family shield. A "phantom" insignia is placed on each car in tribute to the flight squadron that used to be stationed in the factory

Tom Nagy

So if you approach the Nürburgring racetrack in Germany, for
example, the car will automatically download settings for that
track. "The car alters its setup constantly," says Gunner. "Once
the controller identifies it is on the track there will be a
co-ordination handshake between the cloud, the car and the GPS.
Then we use the wheel and speed sensors to identify positioning on
the track. From here we will have set up each corner with the
correct settings for the car."

Ride height, spring stiffness, suspension clicks, the rear
dynamic wing and the front dynamic aeroflaps will all be remotely
controlled. And the car itself will override these settings taking
into account g-forces and breaking events to give the optimal
set-up for whatever situation the One:1 is in.

Koenigsegg manufactures 95 per cent of each car from scratch to
achieve optimised performance from every component. With this level
of forensic fabrication, surely the company could, if commissioned
by an obsessive patron, make a Koenigsegg boat or plane? "Oh, I
think so, yes," Gunner says. "In fact, that has come up. But we are
too busy taking care of business."